n other words, Wellek's definition does not restrict metapoetry to works in which the theme of poetry and its process are explicitly addressed but also includes works in which the poet addresses, salutes, imitates, reacts to, paro- dies, or even attacks other poets. This necessarily expresses an anxiety or at least an active concern with one's position vis-a-vis the tradition one writes in. In that sense, metapoetry is also the poet's way of actively, sometimes even forcefully, placing himself in a tradition. By evoking previous poets, a poet not only displays his knowledge of the previous poetry and confers authority upon his work, but also "links his discourse with previous discourses and locates himself in the line of transmission, or, to put it in other words, he makes him- self part of a tradition." 1